AMERICAN OWNERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 119, 22 May 1928, Page 17

AMERICAN OWNERS.

THE ONE-TO-FIVE RATIO.

A MISLEADING CALCULATION.

There is one automobile to every 6723 persons in Russia, according to the calculation of the American Motorists' Association. There is one automobile to every five persons in the United States, according to all the statistical publications and Press sheets issued since £he first of the year. For those who like their figures straight, without eloquent development, the United States Department of Commerce reports a registration of 21,035 motor cars in Russia as on July 1, 1927, against a registration of 23,125,000 in the United States last year. Which would seem to indicate that so far as the automobile industry is concerned there is no danger of reaching the saturation point in Russia for some time to come. The droshky is not extinct there yet.

Nor is the automobile universal in U.S.A. • That one-to-five ratio for the United States doesn't mean that one person out of every five, has at least an early Ford. There's a trick in it, or rather an oversight. The picture it paints would be more accurate if every person who owns a car owned only one, but when the people who own two or more cars apiece are taken into account the distribution of automobiles throughout the United States is seen to be something else again. It leaves a lot of families and individuals with no cars at all, and concentrates a good many cara in the ownership of relatively few. This means that there are still thousands of people in the States who have not yet Dought -automobiles, but who may be expected to do so as prosperity and the motor habit spread.

It' also means the development of] multiple car ownership even among people of moderate means. It's getting now that scarcely any family is satisfied with a single car. If circumstances permit the ownership of one, they virtually demand the acquisition of two— according to evidence impatiently offered by members of the younger generation, at any rate. That the ydunger generation i 3 right, or at least success-

ful, is evidenced in every suburban town. A few years ago it was not unusual to see street after street of I houses in a well-built section without a garage among them, but where can you find a new house to-day without a garage? And most of them are twocar garages at that. Nor is" it stopping there. A man recently built a house in a town near New York with the idea of renting it to some family of merely comfortable means. "I'm afraid you'll have a hard time getting .it off your hands," a friend sympathised, "because there's room for only two cai s in the garage."

THE LURE OF SPEED. MAJOR SEGRAVE'S EXPERIENCES. Some of the exciting experiences of Major ' Segrave, the famous racing motorist, have been published in book form under the title, "The Lure of Speed." Major Segrave is convinced that "no man will ever devise a machine so fast as to be beyond the control of a human being. The reaction between eye, mina, and muscle is so instantaneous that I believe one could learn to drive habitually at 200 miles an hour supposing road conditions admitted of it." He makes ,a confession: "Many a time I have done 100 miles an hour on the road—l am not going to specify exactly where—and I hope to do it again very often in the future, for there are conditions, depending upon the road and upon the car, under which such a speed is quite safe." The Grand Prix of 1924 stands out in Major Segrave's memory. "Halfway through the race, Lee Guinness, who was ahead of me, suddenly burst a tyre. I saw a cloud of dust, smoke, and stones, with great chunks of rubber shooting up into the air. "The next moment a flying piece of tyre hit my mechanic across the head. He collapsed as though he had been sandbagged. I had to drop him at the next stop and take on another." In the same race a Fiat driver ahead missed the corner, crashed through a fence into a field, and hit an enormous boulder head-on. The car shot into the air, turned over, dropped both driver and mechanic- into a gorse bush, and crashed some yards further on. Neither driver nor mechanic was badly hurt. Bordino, who in the author's view, is the finest road driver in the world, had a narrow escape. At one corner of this route there was a sheer drop of 100 ft i into a quarry. • "This was guarded by a palisade of railway sleepers on end, and was safe enough if you did not go round it too fast. Bordino tried to. His car left the road, crashed into the railway sleepers, uprooted three or four, and hung ovei the lip of the quarry, its two front wheels resting on nothing, and the whole body rocking to and fro like a see-saw. The slightest movement for ward would have sent it hurtling down.' Bordino, who, by a miracle, had nol been thrown out, climbed quietly au< calmly out of the back, none the worse

I BAD MANNERS CAUSE ACCIDENTS. Apparently someone ought to write a "Book of Etiquette for Motorista." And someone else ought to make all drivers read, mark, learn and inwardly digest it. For accident prevention is largely a matter of politeness. It is agreed that discourtesy on the highway causes a majority of motor vehicle accidents, and th® editor of "Touring Topics," the publication of the Automobile Club o1 Southern California, wonders why i naturally polite man becomes so trans formed when driving an automobile thai he will "steal another's right of way' and prove generally "callous to the con venience and safety of other drivers an< _ pedestrians." It is remarkable, he says, that a mai _ in an office building taking the elevato at, say, the tenth floor, will stand asid to let a stranger enter ahead of bin and when he .reaches the revolving doo downstairs .he'll step back to give th same man the right of way. Then he' get into his'automobile at the kerb, stai in second, make a quick pick-me-up «a high, and bowl tthe fellow over trying t get across the intersection before tl control lights change. As the editor of "Touring Topics observes, avoidable accidents will l avoided only when innately decent an competent drivers learn to be as cou: teous at the steering wheal as they ai J on foot.

WHEN ROADS ARE RIVERS. HOW TO FORD THEM. During the past two weeks there has been a little rain, but the time is coming when »there will be more than enough. Country roads and some suburban streets become rivers, and the necessity for crossing may damage the engine in severe cases. It is quite possible for a car or lorry to be driven through water with the exhaust outlet below the surface, provided the pipe is open-ended and without constriction, is not dipped at any point, contains no leaks, and if the passage is made with the engine running at fairly high speed. This has been the experience of motor cycles in trials that include water splashes. If the end of the exhaust pipe is flattened to a fishtail, or is plugged and drilled with small holes, a certain amount of water will enter, and the exhaust pressure will not be sufficient to expel it; back pressure will thus be created, and the engine will stop. Similarly if there is a dip in the pipe, this may collect an accumulation of water, with similar results. To a large extent, of course, it depends upon the depth of the submersion, for, if the end of the exhaust pipe is curved downwards, so that the outlet is just below the surface, the- exhaust gases may not have sufficient pressure to stop the engine. If deeply submerged, however, there is a possibility of the water not only reaching the silencer, but even entering the cylinders. There have, in fact, been cases in which this has been experienced with motor cycles, and the engines have been wrecked, due to the water reaching the combustion spaces above the cylinders.

THE USE OF MIRRORS. THE HANDY SPOTLIGHT. Where more light iB needed in night driving, and particularly where work under the bonnet or minor adjustments are necessary, a spotlight and a mirror are of great help. Two examples of this mirrc l " lighting are described below. The mud-guard type of rear view mirror, which may be swung about on a pivot, Is adjusted bo as to take the light from the spot lamp and reflect it to the engine with the bonnet of the car raised. Carburettor, vacuum-tank, and ignition repairs may be made . with . more assurance and greater rapidity where a good beam of light shows up the parts closely. For lighting the motometer, an extra small rear-view mirror may be installed on the apron of the mudguard so that it will take the dge rays of one of the headlights and reflect them upward and on the front of the motometer. As is obvious, this light will not shine ■ back into the driver's eyes and confusej , as will be the case when the spotlight is ; played on the motometer.

A NEW FORD STORY ALREADY. Apparently the Ford stories have started again, though it is doubtful whether the elegant model A will ever encourage the wit and waggishness inspired by the serviceable but sometimes refractory model T. They're telling a new one out in Detroit, however, about a man who turned in his old two-speed "Lizzie" and got a brand new "Lady" with gear-shaft lever and everything. On the road to his home he was about to overtake a larger and higher-priced car when the driver of the latter machine, offended at the idea of being passed by a Ford, stepped on the gas and attempted to pull away. But the Ford hung on. The big car couldn't shake it, even though its driver went as fast as he dared. Finally, much to his disgust, the Ford drew up beside him, but instead of passing, the man at the wheel leaned out and shouted: "Say, can you tell me how to get this darned thing from second to high?" TIN FOIL FOR FUSE REPAIR. In the event of a fuse blowing when no replacement is at hand, the original fuse can be restored to its former condition of usefulness simply by wrapping a piece of "silver" paper (tinfoil) round the glass tube, so that it makes contact with the metal caps at the ends and is held in place by the clips provided for the accommodation of the fuse. This method is far preferable to the usual one of simply winding a piece of heavy ! wire round the clips, for should there be any fault in the system which should cause a fuse to blow, the resistance of thick wire is too great to "fuse," and some other part of the circuit will be damaged, whereas tinfoil will give way.. If it is considered worth the trouble, old blown-out fuses may be repaired quickly in the home garage simply by melting the solder from the holes in the ends of the metal caps, passing a piece of new fuse wire" of the necessary resistance 1 through caps and glass tube, and securing it in place with a spot of solder where it emerges from the ends of the caps, ' afterwards breaking off the pieces of wire which extended from the caps.